We had been wondering which direction we would fly to reach Beijing; east or west. It's about the same distance either way. However, we received a nice surprise when we took off and realized we were headed north.
Our flight went directly over the North Pole, so we were able to enjoy some scenery during the flight. Oh, and it was broad daylight the entire way.
At the Beijing airport, we were asked to remain on the plane while quarantine officials came on board and took everyone's temperature (remember the H1N1 virus is still out there). I would estimate there were about 300 people on board. So everyone was 'shot' on the forehead with some kind of laser thermometer. About 15 rows in front of us a man was running a fever. So we had to wait while new group of quarantine officials came on board. These officials were completely decked out in what one passenger called "Ghost Buster suits." It took around two hours to get all of this done.
As they did their work my only thought was that they were going to quarantine the entire plane. However, they simply took the 10 or so rows around him and those people got off the plane first and were rechecked and released. The rest of us deplaned after them.
We slept only a few minutes on the flight, so we were exhausted when we finally got to the hotel at 6pm China time (5am Central time). That means we were traveling for closing to 24 hours straight. Yikes! After eating and showering we passed out and slept all night--which is day time in Iowa.
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